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Monday, September 15, 2014

Well in this case it was The Text but the concept was the same. Just to give you a little background I'm in an out of state wedding on Sept. 27th. The bride is a close girlfriend that I work with. We started with our company at the same time and her and I and another girl became very good friends. They both got relocated with the company but we have stayed in touch and we travel together 3-4 times a year. Our other girlfriend was married in May. She is also in the wedding. I filled the two of them in about our situation in Feb. when I had to miss her bachelorette party due to retrieval for my 2nd IVF. So they know what's up and are very supportive but respectful of our privacy. Long story short the wedding is in two weeks and I will pretty much only know the bride and my other girlfriend. There will most likely be a few other random work people there but that's it. And we are both bridesmaids so it wasn't a big deal at all. Well I got the text from my fellow bridesmaid on Saturday night. It went something like this.....

I have something I need to tell you. I didn't want to call and spring it on you but I wanted to let you know that I'm pregnant. I just wanted you to hear it from me and I didn't want to surprise you at the wedding.

So first of all let me just say that I greatly appreciate how sensitive she was to me and also that she did it over text so I could be composed when I responded. The fact that in the midst of her happiness she was able to think of me and my feelings means so much to me. And she is a GREAT person and of course will be a wonderful mother. She deserves this. And I am happy for her.

But I am so so sad for me. Right now I'm having a really hard time envisioning surviving this wedding. And with the fear of showing my selfish ugliness I'm struggling with thoughts of "Why her and not us". She's been married for 4 months and she's 12 weeks along. Which basically means first time is a charm for them. I can not wrap my mind around that. I am trying my best to fight this battle with grace. It's not easy for me to be around children. Honestly it makes me so so sad. And obviously it's super difficult to be around pregnant women. I hate that I feel jealous and so unhappy for myself when I should be feeling joy and happiness for them. And I do, It's just buried so deep underneath my pain.

After having some time to absorb the news I know that I can (and quite frankly HAVE to) find a way to deal with this. The fact that she's a fertile myrtle and I am not is not her fault. Once again I have a lot to be thankful for in my life. So I'm going to focus on that and do my best to push aside the ugliness. I have to keep believing that some how, some way, our time will come.

Friday, September 12, 2014

Happy Friday Friends! I just wanted to thank everyone for the comments and emails regarding the hysteroscopy. After hearing from all of you I went ahead and booked the procedure. We are going to do it on Oct. 1st. Regardless of the outcome it will give us more information which is always useful.

Shockingly I have other non-IF related news. I think most of you know that D is an elementary school principal. The school district he works in is about 40 min. from our house and when he signed his contract they asked him to move into the school district. So our house has been on the market for a while but we really couldn't find anything in the district that we liked. The district is made up of several small communities out in the country and it seemed that the houses were either very small and rundown or ginormous and WAY out of our budget. We've also had trouble selling our house because our backyard is smaller and goes down into a ravine. This was something that we liked when we bought the house because of the privacy and less maintenance. But our home is a 4 bedroom two story and it's definitely designed for a family (sigh.). All of the families that were coming to look at it wanted a bigger backyard for a playground/swing set and the drop off to the ravine made people nervous. Well we FINALLY got an offer and it was a really good one. We countered slightly and they accepted! Our closing is set for Halloween. And we are officially homeless! As I mentioned earlier we have been watching the market in the school district really closely and there's just nothing for sale in our price range. However the day we signed the contract Derek found a house For Sale By Owner out in the country on the outskirts of town. It sits on a couple acres and it's a really cute ranch house that was built in 2000. It's over priced but if we like it I'm hoping the sellers are willing to negotiate. We are going to look at it on Sunday.

Honestly the timing for all of this is perfect. I won't be cycling until Dec. and hopefully we will be moved and settled by then. I'm thankful that I'm not going through the stress of selling our house, looking for a new one, and moving when we are in cycle. And it's a really good distraction that will hopefully help the time go quickly. I am dreading the packing/moving portion of this but we've been living in limbo for over a year with our house on the market and looking for a new one. I'm ready to move and get in a new house and start making it our own.

In OTHER exciting non-IF related news - WE ARE GOING TO SEE GARTH BROOKS TONIGHT! As you can tell I'm a little excited. This is a bucket list thing for me and I can not wait. Unless you've been living under a rock (or hate country music) you've probably heard about his tour and that he's doing 12 shows in Chicago. It's two weekends and he plays two shows Thurs. Fri, and Sat. night. Our best friends got tickets and invited us and we are super stoked!

I think that's all for now. Here's to the next few months flying by. Hope you all have a great weekend!

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Hope everyone had a great weekend. Ours was pretty relaxing which was a nice change. We spent a lot of time over the weekend cuddled up on the couch and I can say the TLC did both of us good. We found things to laugh about, other subjects to talk about (outside of infertility) and I feel like some of the sadness is starting to lift from D's eye. Which in turns makes my heart a little lighter. I. Love. That. Man. His happiness is everything to me.

We did have our meeting with Dr. H. on Friday. As expected he didn't have any miracle answers or suggestions for us. We talked about how there's still a lot that the field doesn't understand about embryo development which is why the success rate for genetically normal embryos is *only* 70%. He feels hopeful that we still have 2 normal blasts to transfer and his recommended path is a FET. We talked about how at our clinic (and a lot of others) their success rates are higher with FET's. He explained that this is due to the fact that when we stim during a fresh cycle they elevate our estrogen levels way higher than they would ever be in a natural cycle. This can cause some disruption in the two types of tissue in your uterus. Basically the increased hormone levels affect them too. When we do a FET he said they monitor 2 things. 1. They want your estrogen level between 300-600. 2. They want your lining greater than 8mm. Obviously during stim your estrogen levels get way beyond the 600. So basically he is feeling that doing a FET that is more in line with a natural cycle is a great option for us.

I asked him about running a couple of tests on my uterus. I've picked the brains of several of my blogger friends and they recommended 2 types of tests. The first is called an e-tegrity test. My understanding is that this tests to see if your uterus has the "sticky" stuff needed for implantation. Dr. H says the results of this test are inconclusive and due to the fact that we've had at least 2 embryos implant he doesn't think that's the issue. The next is a hysteroscopy. For my fertile readers this is where they go up into your uterus with a camera to look at the lining for polyps, scar tissue or fibroids that could be disrupting implantation. Dr. H said he would perform this procedure if I felt strongly about it but he doesn't think it's necessary. He said he's never seen any signs in all of the ultrasounds we've done that my uterus is anything but perfect. So he basically left it up to me.

If we elect not to do the hysteroscopy we could transfer at the end of Oct. If we do it then it will be December before we can do our FET since we have to do the procedure and I have to have another period after and my clinic doesn't cycle in Nov. to give the staff a break.

In other news we've scheduled a phone consult with Dr. Schoolcraft at CCRM for Oct. 14th. I'll be sending him all of our records and we are completing all of the registration and history forms online. I know that CCRM does a hysteroscopy as part of their ODW (one day workup). I'm currently feeling like we should go ahead and have Dr. H do the hysteroscopy. If I transfer in Oct. and it doesn't work I'll still be wondering if it is my uterus. Of course I'm anxious to keep moving forward but I also don't want to waste the lives of 2 more embryos if my uterus is the problem. My gut tells me it isn't and Dr. H is supporting that theory, but until we do the procedure we don't know for sure.

That being said how many of you have had this done? What are your thoughts? If you were in my situation would you do it or just move forward with the FET?

Thursday, September 4, 2014

Well as you've probably guessed from my radio silence my beta dropped on Tuesday. It went from 9 to 5.2. I went back this morning and it was down to 4.7. I have to go back again on Monday and hopefully it's down to zero.

I could sit here and tell you all about how I'm not going to give up, how I trust in The Lord and His plan, how I know that we will be parents one day. But that wouldn't be an honest representation of what I'm feeling right now. Right now, in this moment, I've lost hope. I can't help but to question if we will EVER be parents. That maybe it's God's will for us NOT to be parents. My heart is broken, my spirit is crushed, and I am so very tired. The weight of this struggle is just too much. I feel like I am drowning in sorrow. And there's a part of me that just wants to float to the bottom.

The hardest part of all of this for me is watching D struggle. It literally tears me apart to see him hurting so badly. And I can't help but feel responsible. All I can think of is that he deserves better than this. I hate that he has to experience this and I'd do ANYTHING to take his pain away. But it's not something I have the power to do.

So here we sit. Childless. Running out of options. Running out of money, and definitely running out of hope. We'll meet with Dr. H tomorrow and see what he has to say. I know he doesn't have the answers I so desperately seek. Yes, "normal" embryos have a 70% success rate. So the odds were in our favor. But 70% is not 100%. There are other things that can go wrong and obviously it did. Could it be my uterus? We've never had any indication but I'll be asking about running some tests to confirm that before our next transfer for sure. But the fact of the mater is he can't provide me with a reason or explanation of why this didn't work. And he can't provide me with a guarantee that the next transfer will work either. There's no peace to be found. Honestly there won't be until I hold my baby in my arms (if that day ever comes).

I'm grateful that we still have 2 frozen blasts that tested normal. That's about all the positivity I can come up with right now. As I mentioned in an earlier post while I'm SO thankful for my frozen babies it doesn't stop the pain that is associated with this transfer. It's now 6 babies that we've transferred and lost. Six. That seems like more pain than anyone should have to bear. Three fresh IVF cycles, 4 transfers, and still nothing. We won't be able to cycle again until Dec. which is the month that we did our first IVF cycle. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine we'd still be in this position at this point in time. Call it being naive, but through every step of this process I kept thinking it was the last step. This journey has changed me. I'm scarred, damaged, broken. And regardless of if we ever get a baby I will never be the person I was before experiencing this. Just one more heartbreak to add to the list.

About Me

I'm "A" an active 33 year old married to "D" the love of my life. We are parents to our beautiful, loving, energetic boxer/lab mix puppy "C". This blog is about our hopeful journey to a family of four (C already makes us a family of 3). We love sports, running, food, movies, quiet nights at home and big loud events with our friends and families.